Select Translation
Selections include: The Koran Interpreted, a translation by A.J. Arberry, first published 1955; The Qur'an, translated by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, published 2004; or side-by-side comparison view

What's Inside

Oxford Islamic Studies Online brings together the work of the world's leading scholars to provide users with the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and authoritative online resource in the field.

A-Z Subject Entries

The A-Z core content features major reference works, including the new Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World (March 2009), a six-volume work covering the full geographical and historical extent of Islam. This new reference updates, expands, and revises much of the standard Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, which is also included on the site and will remain available in full, allowing users access to archived articles that have been updated in the new work. In addition, The Islamic World: Past and Present, a reference created by scholars to be accessible to readers at all levels, offers articles on everything from the Abbasid Caliphate to the life of Zaynab, granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad. The A-Z content also includes the critically acclaimed The Oxford Dictionary of Islam.

Biographies

The site contains some 1,000 biographies of the men and women who have made an impact on the Islamic world over the centuries. See sample biographical entries on the founder of the faith, the Prophet Muhammad, and a biography of path-breaking Muslim feminist Fatima Mernissi.

Chaptered Works

The Oxford History of Islam features detailed topical chapters by leading Muslim and non-Muslim scholars, covering the origins and historical development of Islam--its faith, community, institutions, sciences, and arts. Teaching Islam is a resource for educators on how to teach such topics as Islamic Law, the Qur'an, and women in Islam. A guide to the chapters in Teaching Islam can be found in the Learning Resources area of the site. In addition, the question-and-answer based What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam provides a useful guide to the beliefs and lifestyles of contemporary Muslims around the world. To see individual chapter listings, visit the Browse section.

Primary Source Documents

Selected and translated by leading scholars, and prefaced by editorial introductions to provide context—many of which were specially commissioned for this site —over 150 influential primary source documents are currently available. Including excerpts from seminal books, transcripts of speeches, fatwas, statements posted on Arabic internet sites and other sources, these texts cover perspectives from leaders in the Islamic world, activists and respected Muslim scholars representing a variety of schools of thought. Materials range from Qasim Amin's revolutionary late 19th-century writings on "The Emancipation of Woman" to Osama bin Laden's 1998 fatwa against the United States. The currently available documents have been drawn from three of Oxford's most respected primary source collections on Islam: Islam in Transition, Modern Islam, and Liberal Islam.

Qur’anic Studies Resources

The Qur’an is made accessible by means of numerous tools, with references to Qur’anic chapters and verses linked to the Qur’an; a verse look-up tool, and for in-depth study, two interpretations: The Qur’an, a modern prose version from M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, and the classic verse edition from A.J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted. Either text can be studied alone, side by side, or in combination with the first electronic version of Hanna Kassis' A Concordance of the Qur’an, a unique and valuable reference that links English words and their corresponding transliterated Arabic terms to passages, chapters and verses in the Qur'an.

Images and Maps

Some 600 images and maps offer acute visual, historical, and geopolitical perspectives on global Islam. Visual materials can be studied in conjunction with entries on the site or on their own, and later updates will further expand the program. Geographic resources include over 40 full-color maps and 20 articles from the latest edition of the Atlas of the World's Religions.

Timelines

There are two timelines to provide reference and context on the history of Islam and its role in global affairs. The primary timeline documents over 1,000 historic moments in Islamic history—births, deaths, reigns, wars—with links to related content within the site. The timeline of Islamic history can be viewed alone, or side-by-side with a timeline of general world history events at corresponding periods.

Learning Resources

Students, teachers, and outreach professionals will benefit from this growing section, which includes The Geography of the Islamic World, a page with thematically organized links to the text and maps from the latest edition of the Atlas of the World's Religions; an A-Z glossary; the question-and-answer guide What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam; editorially selected and annotated links to off-site internet resources; a chapter-based guide to Teaching Islam; thematic guides on issues related to the Islamic world such as the Arab-Israeli conflict; and lists of suggested further readings about all aspects of Islam and the Qur’an.

Search and Browse by Era, Topic, and Region

In addition to the standard quick Search box, the special Search forms and Browse feature are particularly valuable research tools. Refine search, Browse and the search forms allow users to efficiently find the information they need within the nearly 6,000 articles, chapters, primary source documents,images and maps within the site. While most search results can be sorted by content type, topics, eras, and regions, the special Search forms also make it easy to target information based on criteria such as branch of Islam, profession, Qur’anic terms, bibliographic references, type of primary source and much more. Within Browse, all users—subscribers and non-subscribers alike—can use the A-Z Jump feature, view by content type and select eras, main topics and regional filter selections (subscribers can navigate listings to access the full content of any source within the site; public visitors can click through to any of the 2,500 entries from The Oxford Dictionary of the Islamic World).

Archived Articles

When articles in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World update content from The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, the latter continue to be accessible as "Archived articles" to allow users to compare perspectives between 1995 and the present, and conduct other types of in-depth research. In result lists, archived entries are indicated by the presence of a file cabinet icon, and links between archived and primary articles help users move back and forth to compare articles. Archives are always included in Browse lists, and there is a check-box option to "Include archived entries from The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World" in Main, Biography and Bibliography searches.